The Friday, November 18 edition of the Santa Barbara News-Press‘s “Scene” section includes a glowing review of the Santa Barbara Contemporary Art Forum’s Wireless exhibition, which is curated by KCSB-FM/UCSB alumnus Elizabeth Lovero. Wireless assembles the work of international artists exploring themes of radio transmission and communications, and is part of a year-long series of radio programs and public events commemorating the 50th anniversary of Santa Barbara’s only community-radio station.

“At first blush, a show about sound and radio waves and the socio-political issues surrounding the forces of radio, could seem unconventional for CAF. And yet this institution has always reserved the right to cozy up to elements of surprise and social investigations, not to mention the upending of expectations. ‘Wireless’ manages those feats, and neatly.”

About the community station being honored by the exhibition, Woodard says, “KCSB is something of a treasure in our regional radio dial midst… a jewel in the rough… As an added bonus, or lack, there is no NPR or APR quasi-corporate affiliations to homogenize or yuppy-fy what is truly a fine and operative example of the ‘homegrown free form radio’ model.”

Woodard also comments on the “Picnic Revolution!” guerilla radio-art event co-presented at UC Santa Barbara’s Storke Plaza on November 4th by KCSB and CAF. A “poster and speaker podium armature” in the CAF gallery space commemorates the interactive installation by the artist collective Neighborhood Public Radio, “whose revolutionary rhetoric, amid the current ‘Occupy (your city here)’ protest fervor in America, is only half-cheeky, especially for those still faithful about the democratizing, civic-blanketing power of radio.”

CAF’s Wireless exhibition is a collaboration between KCSB, the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, and the New Noise Music Foundation, which hosted the New Noise Digital Music Conference & Festival 2011 from November 3rd-5th.